Single at 39, my pride abhors the widower available…

With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com, Tel: 08054500626 Dear Agatha, I am 39 years of age. In the opinion of everybody around me, I am extremely beautiful, a fact I am also very aware of. Ever since I was young, I have enjoyed the attention of men. Even when I don’t want such attentions, I still get them. So I got used to using my looks to my advantage, even to lure lecturers to give me a soft landing in my exams. None of my relationships lasted for long due to jealousy. I was always at loggerheads with any man in my life. Since my ways were working for me, I didn’t have any reason to bother. Overnight, I discovered that my less beautiful friends are today married with their own families. Only married men desire me. The single ones that trickle in are more interested in my body than having me for a wife. The beauty that worked for me back then seems to have become my fall. The reason I am writing has to do with my latest challenge. It has to do with the man I recently met in church, introduced to me by my pastor. According to my pastor, he is a widower. But the problem is that he isn’t my kind of man; he is short, ugly and below the standards of the men I have dated in my life. However, I am told by the pastor he is my husband; the man God wants to use in helping to remove my shame as a woman. According to my pastor, if I refuse to marry him, I will never get married in my life as God. He said the prayer of my mother is the reason I am being given this chance to marry. That God through His choice for me is to teach how to be humble. This is why I am writing for help. There is no way I can even bring myself to greet this man let alone have him for a husband. I can’t introduce him to any of my friends as the man in my life. We are worlds apart despite his claims to having a university degree in Accountancy. But like every woman my age, I am desperate to settle down and being a family of my own. All my younger sisters and brothers are married and happy with their partners. Everybody addresses me as madam. My nieces and nephews all address me as big mummy. I am so confused about everything. Please help me. Titi. Dear Titi, Are you sure you are serious about being married? From your e-mail, it is obvious that you aren’t serious about getting married at all; instead you are contented in glorifying in your beauty. Besides, what gives you the impression that the man after getting close to your person would want to marry you in the long run? No matter how desperate this man is, he wouldn’t, considering the memories of his late wife would want to risk living with a woman who has little or no respect for him. He needs a woman who is full of compassion, who is ready to assist him to heal from the horror of losing a loved one and not one who is more concerned about her looks and what friends would think of her choice. If your friends care so much about you, how come you are still single at your age and they are married with their own families? Should they have done something to help you settle down when they were contemplating their own marriages? But, it isn’t your friends who are lonely, getting expired on the viability shelf. They aren’t the ones being called big mummy when they are even yet to get the marriage proposals. A woman who is serious about her desire to end up in a man’s house doesn’t play the things you are playing up. At almost 40 you should have gone past the unrealistic phase of every woman to marry the tall, rich and handsome guy. If you are still single at your age, doesn’t it tell you that it is time to come down from your lofty heights and become real with yourself? What have you gained from dating the kinds of men you elected to date beyond heartache? I am sure if you are truthful, you will agree with me that beyond the temporary sexual and perhaps certain material gains, there is nothing meaningful in your life to point at. Life is much more than what we look on the inside. It is what we house inside of us. As you have found out from the many experiences you have had, good looks don’t guarantee happiness and satisfaction. Which is the real issue in all these. There is no way any man, even if ordered from Mars can ever give you the kind of joy and happiness you want if you lack the discipline to isolate your real self. Who are you? Beyond your looks, what do you have going for you? What can you offer a man in terms of quality contribution to his life and home? What kind of wife and mother will you make? If you were a man, would you go for a woman like you? I ask these questions because sex, which is what you have from your story offered men is the easiest and cheapest thing a woman can give a man. Therefore, it isn’t a reason for any man to want to hold down a bad marriage or any kind of marriage for that matter. For a woman to survive the politics of her husband’s house, she needs something much more to make her relevant in her husband’s life. And these things are not a woman’s look or performance in the bedroom. These are things you don’t have at all. Your mother by standing in gap for you may have bought you mercy from the Throne of Grace but you have to know what to do with it to make it work for you. There is no way you can be happy with a man if you maintain your arrogant posture. Much as nobody can force you into staying with a man you are not comfortable with, the fact remains that wisdom is integral to man’s existence. It is what makes the difference between failure and success. At this stage, you should sit down to examine what life has left to offer you. Forget what this man looks like to what he can offer you. Who is he like inside? Most of the time our glow and true nature come from within. We are mostly what we encase inside of us at all times. Our pleasantness, relationships, temperaments, attitudes and character as what we have inside of us. This is where our haughtiness and pride also come from. Whatever we are come from the inside. One maybe good looking on the outside, but if lacking in good manners becomes ugly. Give yourself a chance to be happy by listening to whatever he has to say. Train your mind to forget his looks. Behind every seemingly ugly person is a hidden treasure, the kind of beauty difficult to ignore. Granted yours is the surface kind of beauty, his could be the inner kind. It is like the raw gold; ugly at its most raw form but beautiful and precious after the goldsmith has endured the heat, pains of transforming it to the more common form women generally adore. There is no story without pains and disappointments. Life has more to offer than good looks. Explore what life offers you in the form of this man by opening your heart to listen to him. If you don’t divorce yourself from those feeling of worthless superiority you have, you will never get to know the real him. God that brought him your way has a reason. Humility is part of our transformation to God’s way; who at any rate is the most superior. Just as you are the image of God, this man you think is ugly represents a side of God, so to call him ugly is to question His ways. Pride always goes before fall. You have the right to seek clarification from God by learning to trust Him no matter what. Perhaps this will help you know what is most important at this stage of your life; being happy in life irrespective of what your friends think about your husband or making your friends happy while you cope with loneliness and unhappiness? The choice is yours. Good luck.